Farm Family of the Year honored

By WILLIAM KEESLER The Dispatch

Friday

Sep 28, 2007 at 12:26 AM

Early in their marriage, Nolan and Sue Smith made a conscious decision to bring up their children the way their parents brought them up - on a farm."We were desirous of an agrarian lifestyle and an agricultural lifestyle and wanted to raise our two boys basically as we were raised," Nolan Smith said.The theory was that farm life would teach their sons to value hard work as well as the land. "And it has proven successful," Sue Smith said.Their older son, Chris, 38, is a wildlife officer with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on the N.C. coast. Their younger son, Lee, 34, a mechanical engineer and airplane broker, said he's no farmer, but he married a veterinarian. The three members of the next generation, ages 5 to 2, look forward to vacations on their grandparents' farm in the Welcome area."If you're good to the land," Nolan Smith said, "the land will be good to you."At a banquet Thursday night at the J. Smith Young YMCA, the Davidson Soil and Water Conservation District recognized Nolan and Sue Smith as the county's Conservation Farm Family of the Year. The Smiths also won the award for Area VIII, a 12-county section of the southern Piedmont, and finished second in statewide competition.Andy Miller, county soil and water conservation director, said the Smiths have worked in numerous ways with his agency to conserve soil and water on their 100-acre-plus farm, where they raise Angus-based cattle and American Quarter Horses.The Smiths rotate their livestock among 12 pastures and use controlled winter grazing to extend their grass and clovers. The animals needed no hay last winter, but because of drought conditions will require supplemental feeding next week unless some rain falls, Nolan Smith said.To protect water quality, the Smiths have fenced their animals away from creeks and their pond and have installed watering equipment. They have planted vegetative cover throughout the farm and have built sedimentation basins to keep soil out of the 3-acre pond.To create a healthy wildlife habitat, they plant trees around their pastures, providing food as well as transportation passages. They built a wetland and have preserved an active beaver dam. Sue Smith's gardens attract butterflies and have been nationally certified as a wildlife habitat.The farm also draws rabbits, great blue heron, wood ducks, red-tailed hawks, ospreys, woodpeckers and for three days, a bald eagle. The pond teems with bass, bream and catfish.Asked why it's important that a farm that raises domestic animals also provide a home for wild animals, Sue Smith said it's because they've seen so much wildlife habitat "disappear in our lifetime." If the farm is a healthy place for wildlife, then it's also "a cleaner place for us to live," Nolan Smith said.The Smiths grew up on Davidson County tobacco farms and met each other at the Livestock Cafe, a small restaurant Sue's family operated at the county livestock auction on Old U.S. Highway 64 outside Lexington.Nolan Smith earned an associate's degree in animal science from N.C. State University, worked for a big livestock operation at Fayetteville and served in the Air Force before returning to Davidson County for a career as a residential general contractor. Sue Smith earned a bachelor's degree in education from Methodist College in Fayetteville and a master's degree in education from Wake Forest University, and taught school in Goldsboro and then for 25 years at Reeds Elementary School, where she used their farm, started in 1974, as a teaching tool for her students. Both have retired and now work full time on the farm.Nolan Smith is a member of the county Cattlemen's and county Horsemen's associations and served on the planning committee that helped create the county's Voluntary Agricultural Districts. Sue Smith helped found a Jr. Gardeners Club at Friedberg Elementary, advised on the development of a garden at Reeds Elementary, co-authored a series of Dispatch articles about farm and land trends and helped launch Rural Roots tours of county farms for non-farmers.Both have been active in church work. They welcome visits by church groups, 4-H clubs and other organizations to their farm.Also at the banquet Thursday night, the Soil and Water Conservation District recognized Emily Lowman, a Tyro Middle School student, for winning at the county and area levels and finishing second at the state level in an annual conservation essay contest. The district also recognized John Winters, a Ledford Middle School student, for winning at the state and area levels in the conservation poster contest. The theme was "Wetlands Are Wonderful."The district also recognized three other students - Kayla Jarrett and Stratton Goins, who are home-schooled in Holly Grove, and Wesley Kimbrell of West Davidson High School - who represented the county at a resource conservation workshop at N.C. State University over the summer.Lloyd Phillips, a county soil and water resource specialist, listed accomplishments for the past year, including that the county, since 1990, has recently exceeded the $1 million level for agricultural conservation projects subsidized by the state cost-sharing program.William Keesler can be reached at 249-3981, ext. 221, or at bill.keesler@the-dispatch.com.

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